Facebook’s average active user likes upwards of 20 pages that assign them to certain behavioral and interest-based groups. Facebook Ads makes this information fully available to advertisers, only, they make it tough to find and understand. Check out 9 of the best Facebook Ad tools with tips on how to integrate them into your next ad campaign.

1. Behavior Targeting

Facebook users are more than a demographic segmented by age, gender, and location. They’re living, breathing, trend-following beings who do and say a lot about their preferences and behavior on the web. Using interests and web behavior give marketers revealed preferences, which are far more powerful than general umbrella categories like age group and living in Boulder, Colorado. To access Facebook’s User-Behavior data and begin creating target markets, follow these steps:

From here, you can begin to refine your targeting. Although there is a “Work” tab within the Advanced setting, I find “Job Role” within the Behaviors tab to be a much more effective targeting solution. The Work tab is limited to categories such as “Business and financial operations” or “Sales”, whereas Behaviors can more widely target small business owners, business marketing professionals, or Managerial position holders.

2. Only Pay for Video Ads When People Actually Watch Them

Apple Music wasn’t the only important tech update on Tuesday (June 30). Facebook now hosts an option where advertisers will only be charged fees if their video is viewed by the user for more than 10 seconds. In addition to the greater story-telling capabilities for content creation, this prevents one’s wallet falling victim to people’s rapid-scroll compulsions.

A Note on Retargeting

If people are watching 10 seconds or more of your Facebook video, it’s logical to assume that they may be more interested in your product or service than those who don’t stick around. By creating a custom audience based on time spent viewing the video, you’re able to group together those consumers that are actively engaging with your company on Facebook. Then, you can create ads to retarget those people who:

3. Target Newlyweds, People New to Town

Remember what I said about wearing emotions on digital sleeves? Well, people are also more than willing to let you know about major life events such as “first kiss” and “lost weight today.”As useful as those may be, Facebook categorizes the plethora of available events into more productive categories:

For instance, a restaurant may want to target Facebook users who are new in a relationship – a market more actively seeking new places to dine.

4. “Tap, Tap Done”: Creating leads in 2 taps

Along with Facebook’s improved video ad targeting in #2, Facebook Lead Ads are fresh off the printing press, and they’re boom-tap-done easy.

Just as saved forms on web browsers save you from entering the mundane slots of information for every site, service, and carry out order you encounter on the web, Facebook Lead Ads populate sign-up flows for Leads with user’s information, making the process from impression to submission of Lead information as easy as: 1, 2, 3.

5. Test Your Text

Facebook’s text overlay tool is a life-saver when it comes to making sure the platform doesn’t penalize your ad for too much text. While there’s no magic number, the general rule is the less text, the better user experience so Facebook will make sure more people will see your ad. This free tool measures the proportion of text to image of your ad and lets you know if it meets Mark Zuckerberg’s standards. All you have to do is upload the image and Facebook will let you know if your ad is likely to run or not. Make sure to check out these other design principles to create the most effective Facebook Ads while you’re at it.

6. Experiment With Ad Formats

In today’s modern Facebook feed, it’s tough to make your ad look distinctive from the rest. Integrating carousel ads into your next Facebook advertising campaign can not only help you stand out but help reduce your CPC. This provides more room for creativity compared to the boring ol’ image post.

You can upload up to 10 images (or videos!) along with individual headlines, CTA’s, links – you name it. It’s worth noting that while carousel ads are great to experiment with, don’t forget about all the ad format options Facebook has to offer. (Our friends at Buffer give details on all the different Facebook Ad Formats in their Complete Guide to Getting Started With Facebook Ads.)

With all of this information, it can get overwhelming. Just remember, when it comes to any new advertising format, always keep testing!

7. Get Inspired

Launched in 2016, Facebook’s Creative Hub is a place where advertisers can create, share and be inspired by a collection of ad creatives. Designed with input from actual creative agencies, it’s the perfect place to experiment with content creation and publishing across Facebook and Instagram.

Within the Hub, you can create mockups of your ad to preview what it would look like across desktop and mobile, and even send preview links to team members, supervisors, and collaborators.

You can also insert your creative into all of the different ad formats that Facebook offers, so you can figure out the best fit. The Hub provides some inspiration (if you’re starting from scratch) and a collaboration feature to help spark your creativity with fellow Facebook advertisers.

If you’re really interested in creating an ad in the Creative Hub, this article from the Shape Shift Report provides an extremely detailed walkthrough on how to do it, from mock-up to final product.

8. The Power Of The Pixel

The all-powerful Facebook Pixel is arguably the most important Facebook tool when it comes to measuring ad performance. Essentially, it tracks a Facebook user after they click your ad and land on your website or inside your mobile app. Beyond conversion tracking, the Facebook Pixel can also help you with creating similar audiences, retargeting efforts, custom conversions and your dynamic product ads.

What is Conversion Tracking?

Conversion tracking is the best way to track what your customers are doing when they visit your website, mobile app, blog etc. Depending on your business, the conversions you want to track are going to vary. In both Facebook and Google AdWords advertising, conversion tracking attributes which sales/leads/sign-ups are originating from your ads.

It may require time and patience to set up, but the work is well worth the payoff. To make it a little easier, we’ve put together a Facebook Pixel Setup Guide to get you up and ready to start measuring your audience’s activity on your site.

9. The AdHawk App

Of course, the reason these tools exist is because sucessfully advertising on Facebook is no easy task. That’s why AdHawk is here to help! We simplify digital advertising by aggregating your Google AdWords and Facebook Ad accounts into one place and providing recommendations and insights based on machine learning.

If you’ve made it to the end, give yourself a pat on the back. Hopefully this post provided you with some tools and you’re ready to start experimenting with them in your next Facebook ad campaign! Make sure to check out AdHawk if you’re looking for help with your digital advertising, feel free to drop a question in the comments, or send us a tweet @AdHawk (We reply to every tweet!)